


Saccharine Silver

by auraofdawn



Series: Jaded Jewels [2]
Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: Angst, Character Study, DMC Week (Devil May Cry), Family Feels, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Introspection, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-09
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:47:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26919841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/auraofdawn/pseuds/auraofdawn
Summary: By any and all rules Dante knew of, he had been a normal kid.As far as this city knew, that kid was dead, and Tony Redgrave didn’t know a thing about him. Why would he? He was just a nobody, a handyman that wandered in and out of bars looking for pizza and work. His days that weren’t spent killing demons were spent looking at offices for rent or bugging Nell about those guns she was supposedly making him.Perhaps, this kid could just never forget the way home.
Series: Jaded Jewels [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1964155
Kudos: 19





	Saccharine Silver

**Author's Note:**

> This is set before DMC 3, idk how long exactly, just long enough that Dante still goes by Tony (but maybe not Redgrave while he’s IN Red Grave lmao) and the DMC1 novels are kinda retconned at this point anyway, so any references to that plot/characters are purposely vague, too
> 
> anyway, please enjoy!

Dante doesn’t know why he’s here. 

He hardly recognizes Red Grave anymore; the little borough has blown up so much, he could hardly see its green anymore. All the patches of countryside that he’d run through as a boy were razed in favor of sparkling skyscrapers and cemented highways. Steels and dark knots took the place of those stormy greys and lively earths. A part of him wants to mourn all the banking brooks and towering trees he hadn’t appreciated enough; a bigger part knows he can’t afford to grieve any more than he already has. 

So he allows himself to be drawn towards all the new restaurants and bars. This world, he knows well by now. Doesn’t matter the city or the people, dive bars speak a universal language that he is fluent in. He can just wander aimlessly between them, letting the lights guide him through to the early hours of the day. Until he starts recognizing some of the older greys and browns. 

The streets were more or less the same, where they’d been built centuries ago. Same as how his father had probably walked down them, way back when. Vintage, as some of the trendier locals would call it now, he thinks. 

Perhaps, this kid could just never forget the way home. 

He almost runs headfirst into the gate. Which really throws him off, because their gate had been more or less for show, the way it always seemed to fly open for a pair of boys as they raced out. It had also only been made of small stones, cobbled together only waist-high—low enough for he and his brother to leap over despite their mother’s warnings. This gate is even taller than he is now, complete with that evil, pointy-looking iron trim at the top. Whoever put this up really wanted to keep people out these days, and he could see why. 

It's the last free-standing house within an eye's reach. And his eyes are pretty damn good, if he could say so himself. He's not that tired or drunk; he’s been wandering since the last bar threw him out at last call and the sky is just getting to that dark-but-not-dark stage of morning. They sky is dim enough to still need the dull streetlights, but light enough that the sun could show any second. But he doesn't need light to know what he'll find. 

Even now, he can see the char on it—like a well-done hamburger. Just on the edge of the roof and the surface of the stone work: a dusting of black and grey that mismatched the smooth stone it had been carved from, so long ago. From afar it could have looked fine, he supposed. But judging by how the taste of this town had gotten so shiny, that probably explained why the place looked emptier than the old countryside had been. 

So no bigwigs could have been bothered to buy it or fix it up, huh? A part of him expected it to either be totally different, or totally gone. That it’s still here, in good shape, shocks his groggy brain silly. 

_What else could still be the same_ , a stupid part of himself wonders. 

Dante's feet shuffle forward before he can think to stop them. Maybe there's actually people inside. Maybe the demons never left. 

Maybe... he’s not the only one who survived. 

The gate is nothing to worry about, but the manor doors are sternly locked. Despite Nell’s usual opinion, Dante still has manners, so he gives the thick wood some firm knocks and waits long enough to hear nothing but the early morning wind rush through his hair. No other sounds come forth, nor lights—not even those fancy motion-sensing ones that had helped him spot a demon or two. So maybe if he just pulls on the latch enough... 

_Jackpot_. 

The big double doors push open easily, like they know, like they want him back where he was born. 

The family portrait is almost untouched. It just slants a little, jostled by the earth-shattering circumstances of _that day_ , but all four of them are still there, staring straight ahead at him, and him alone. 

Hell, the parlor even looks kinda good. No doubt Mother would have been upset at the sight of anything even _slightly_ out of place, but Dante could live with it. The couches looked okay, aside from a little dust. Behind them, the stairs seem to be in good shape, and they whisk him away as easily as they had done before. It’s the rest of the house that isn’t in as great shape—stuff thrown around willy-nilly, furniture turned over and melted—the kinda things tossed aside by demons looking for three things, and finding only two. 

No wonder the entryway still looked so good—even the stupidest demon didn’t think a human would wait for their doom right by the door! He remembered hearing them whoosh past the wardrobe, snarling and roaring for him. But he had stayed quiet, just like Mother had told him, and he’d been okay. 

He wanders into what had been his father’s study, he realizes with a start. They hadn’t been allowed in there much, back then. The man had kept Rebellion and Yamato plus Luce & Ombré in there, all prettied on the wall—waiting _just_ for them, he’d said. Dante and Vergil gossiped aimlessly over when and how he’d finally hand them down to them—would they have to earn 'em? By defeating their father one on one? By reaching adulthood? By passing a trial of wisdom or strength? 

Sparda had never hinted at anything, only that they would receive them when they needed them. That had turned out to be true, in the worst possible way. 

Rebellion thrummed on his back, its former resting place ringing familiar, even now. Below its formerly-mounted weapon stand sits everything else that made this place a study: A desk of dark oak framed by shelves reaching from floor to ceiling, packed with books in varying states of disarray and age, languages both dead and alive trapped within their pages. It had all seemed so large and imposing when he was little, and now it feels so small. This was the only real evidence of his father’s existence in this world, Dante realized. Well, besides himself. 

The world thought of his father as a legend now, when he had only really been a man who retreated to this room when he wasn’t sparring with his sons, or reading with his wife. Yet it doesn’t escape Dante that this room had a head start on gathering dust before the rest of the house could catch up. 

He can’t comprehend how Sparda could have liked it in here, though, as he spins around and leans on the desk like he would his own. The old wood creaks a little, but he can tell it’s fine. The view is so small and short, though; no windows, just a little corner with some chairs and lamps finish the space, and that’s _it_. The old man didn’t want any more space just to breathe? To pace or somethin? 

Dante can feel himself going batty just by sitting in the room, and not just from bad memories. But just when he starts to think it can’t offer him anything more, the frame on the desk does not escape him. It’s remarkably well-preserved, even better than the painting. Mother smiles like she always had, before either of the little demons could stir up trouble or their father do something silly. 

He snatches it, brings it close to his chest, like she belongs. Because she does belong, and ten years without her is long enough. 

A part of him wants to keep it. It’s the last evidence that all those times weren’t just a dream; that he’d been a kid with a big brother and a mother and father in a big old yard that stretched on for acres. He liked to play outside, Vergil liked to read in the parlor window, their father taught them how to swordfight, and their mother whisked them away to tend the garden on both their good and bad days. By any and all rules Dante knew of, he had been a normal kid. 

As far as this city knew, that kid was dead, and Tony Redgrave didn’t know a thing about him. Why would he? He was just a nobody, a handyman that wandered in and out of bars looking for pizza and work. His days that weren’t spent killing demons were spent looking at offices for rent or bugging Nell about those guns she was supposedly making him. 

Those are the only ways Tony or Dante can spend their time, now. Any chance he ever had to know otherwise lies here, locked away like an abandoned dollhouse. All that’s left for him to do is shove it out of his mind again, back into the furthest crevices of the attic in his brain. 

With his mother’s picture safe in his jacket, Dante turns away from his father’s legacy. Hopefully, for the last time. The way out is faster than the way in because he doesn’t need to look at anything twice. 

Before he can leave, though, the canvas calls to him as well, but in a haunting way. None of them smile, none of them look mildly happy to be there, and he almost laughs at how much his younger self looks half-asleep. He’d hated sitting for the painter—standing, rather, as Vergil elbowed him whenever he leaned too close or when Mother smoothed his hair out while Father side-eyed them for prattling so much. Even their mother, for all her ethereal beauty, stares through him like he'd just done something wrong. The firm, genuine smile in his father's personal frame— _that’s_ how he wants to remember her. Not in a stuck-up, peeling painting. 

He could hang it up in the shop, once he gets a shop, tell people he’d been nice and civilized once, then grin and laugh alongside them. A nice conversation starter. But does he really wanna chat it up, in his line of work? With all the desperate and scared that might call? Guys the likes of Morrison didn’t even care to ask what his last name was. 

For himself at least, it’d be nice to have. 

But it’s still messed up. He can’t afford to have it fixed, and he honestly doesn’t have the slightest idea where to start looking. It would also be a tad too obvious, for those who knew the truth. He would’ve been better off painting a target on his back and screaming “SON OF SPARDA, RIGHT HERE.” 

He can’t do that. He shouldn’t do that. Mother had outright told him _not_ to do that. 

So he won’t. But she didn’t say he couldn’t remember her, at least for himself. 

As Dante walks out the doors, the sun is eager to scold him with a firm slap of her rays. Already his skin flares in angry reds at the light, and all the blinks in the world can't shield his poor eyes enough. Ah, well. He knew what he was getting into staying out this late. He was no stranger to the dawn, nor she him. 

He’s careful to relock the doors behind him, lest he come to find his family picture in a local pawn shop sometime soon. But he's pretty sure if its stayed empty and untouched for a decade already, it stands a good chance of staying that way for another, or however many more Red Grave City would give it. 

Around his neck, a silver chain captures the newborn sunlight and spreads it throughout his chest. The sensation is brief, like a paper cut, but its sting reverberates through his veins, alongside the blood that he couldn’t change, no matter how hard he tried. 

He grips the amulet tight between his fingers, its heat spreading faster as the rest of his nerves adjusted to the burn of the light. In a matter of minutes, he would feel fine, feel up to being Tony, and leave Dante behind the gates again. But the bright red gem shows all its facets, refusing to stay hidden in his hand, and he’s not about to hide it. As he walks forward, it bumps against the pocket in his jacket, ringing true with the same amulet in his mother’s picture for the first time in ages. 

He’s got more than one thing to hold onto, now. And he’ll die before he lets either of them go. 

**Author's Note:**

> this was a nice one to get out of my drafts, where its been since i posted the Eva one LAST YEAR lol. i didn't plan for this to become a pseudo-series of nothing but internal family angst, but i also didn't plan to write 110k words of anything and here we are! 
> 
> I thought DMC week would be a good time to post this, since today's themes are family/home/belonging and this hits those nails on the head. But whereas Eva's part was centered on the amulets, Dante's is on her photo, bc a tiny part of me always wondered when/why/how he even had it, since I really don't think little Dante had the time/forethought to grab it when he left the first time. Since DMC5 showed us that the house was actually ok until the qliphoth, there went my headcanons, and here came the angst :,) I don't write about Dante nearly enough (thanks, Vergil), so this became good practice for that, too!
> 
> thanks again for reading and you can follow the series for when i inevitably come up with a vergil part, or just to catch the end of [the devil's got my arms](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21784648/chapters/51981415), which I've been toiling away at recently!


End file.
